I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m piling on Jerry Hinnen over at The Joe Cribbs Car Wash, because he’s one of my favorite bloggers, but there’s something about this passage that’s been nagging at me since I read it:

Lost amidst the predictable Keanu-style Whoa!’s in response to Auburn paying their new RB coach 400K a year and Tennessee and LSU battling to see who could offer Ed Orgeron the most virgins is that neither Auburn nor Tennessee are paying their new head guys what we might expect to be “market value” for an SEC head coach. Any cries of viva la revolucion are obviously a little bit premature, but Auburn and the Vols’ approach does seem to represent perhaps a new way of financial thinking in the SEC: hire a less splashy but cheaper head coach, then back him with the cash saved on his salary to put together the best staff money and a stable full of pure-bred Arabian racehorses can buy.

My first thought upon reading that was wouldn’t it just have been easier to hire Mike Leach?

I think Jerry’s kidding himself if he thinks there was a coordinated plan in place at those schools to structure staff salaries in the manner he suggests. To begin with, if either of these new coaches is successful in the short run, what’s the first thing that will happen? That’s right – the head man gets a fat raise and there go the savings.

But more importantly, if that really were the conscious strategy, I fail to grasp the logic behind it. Given all the money getting ready to tumble into every SEC program, which these schools are clearly ready to throw at assistants at an unprecedented level, why would an athletic director let a few bucks get in the way of a home run hire for head coach?

Let me illustrate with a hypothetical. Suppose that through some miracle Bobby Petrino had been able to extricate himself from his contract at Arkansas and presented himself as a candidate for the Auburn job at the eleventh hour. Does anybody believe that Jay Jacobs would have said something like, “sorry, Bobby, we’ve decided to go in another direction with Gene Chizik so we can throw some money at Trooper Taylor to hire him as an assistant”? Of course not. And could you imagine the reaction of the Auburn faithful if word got out that Jacobs did something like that? Tar and feathers, baby.

On the other hand, spending wads of cash to hire assistants makes perfect sense from the head coach’s standpoint. It’s the southern-fried football version of George Steinbrenner’s method of running a sports operation. Relatively speaking, you’ve got more money than you know what to do with. Unlike George, you can’t spend the moolah on the players, so you spend it on the next closest thing. Will it work? I dunno – when’s the last time the Yankees won the World Series?

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UPDATE: Tennessee Athletic Director Mike Hamilton puts his math skills on display. Looks to me like he’s either FOS or engaged in some seriously delusional thinking.

… If Tennessee stays below the $4 million total for the assistants – as Hamilton said it will – then the average salary for the other six Vol assistants will be less than $250,000. Lane Kiffin has hired four assistants directly from the NFL. He is believed to be considering two other current NFL assistants.

They were prepared to offer Garner approximately $400K a year. I’m guessing that if the right guy catches their eye, they’re ready to throw that kind of money out there again. So much for Hamilton’s budget. Besides, what “current NFL assistant” is going to come to UT for less than $250K a year? That’s a joke.

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UPDATE #2:Jerry’s response is a thing of beauty, which, as we all know, is a joy forever. Or at least until Auburn or Tennessee has a losing season again.

Utah’s attorney general is investigating the Bowl Championship Series for a possible violation of federal antitrust laws after an undefeated Utes team was left out of the national title game for the second time in five years.

I’d take politicians like this more seriously if they started their grandstanding before bowl season, rather than after their teams get there.

It suddenly dawned on me after reading this post of Doc Saturday’s that if Tommy Tuberville finds himself with too much time on his hands this year, he could rent himself out as a “mythical national champ” consultant to programs that didn’t play in the BCS title game but think they have a claim to the #1 slot. After all, the man’s got experience.

Quote Of The Day

“It brings back a great Bulldog running back in Thomas who has NFL playing experience and has had success as a college coach at multiple schools. He also inherits a position that has been built to an elite level by Bryan. And it gives Bryan the opportunity to return to coaching the position he played and the one where he cut his teeth serving as a graduate assistant under wide receiver coach John Eason here at UGA. It also provides him with a new experience as a passing game coordinator.” -- Mark Richt, AB-H, 2/16/15